Artwork © Ira Joel Haber

 

Trophy at the end—what
is being sought in the old wild goose chase?
Nothing is as obvious as the end,
the denouement of the old things
like becoming aware of life,
though it’s always a city
that begs for a bureaucracy
to hold it within its clowniness,
without eschewing fashion
because fashion is wearing its little
diamonds in its hair.
How can everything be serious?
Someone plots a big question labeled soon false,
like finally realizing that the story of
the lake is the story of everybody’s centers.
I take the margins because I can,
quit drinking but still continue hanging out with all my friends.
And when that last desire becomes hunger,
I eat to avoid the bleeding once known.

 

Laura Carter is a poet and teacher living in Atlanta.

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows both in the USA and Europe and he has had nine one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 300 online and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Creative Artists Public Service Grant (CAPS) two Pollock-Krasner grants, two Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grants and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. in 2017 & 2018 he received the Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA artist-in-residence grant.